‘To Bobby’: Joan Baez’s political plea to Bob Dylan
Across Bob Dylan’s discography, and really his life too, he’s remained secretive. While still writing about his life and the people and lovers in it, he always weaved his poetry into a kind of veil, hiding the real-life muse behind a mystery rather than making anything too obvious. But Joan Baez didn’t afford him that same privacy when she released ‘To Bobby’, her political plea that calls him out by name.
The key to understanding Baez’s song is to understand Dylan’s. In 1964, he released ‘To Ramona’, using what Baez said was his nickname for her in the title. It’s a complex track, perfectly representing their complex connection that saw love, desire, admiration, frustration and even politics all at play. When the two musicians first met, it was their mutual appreciation for one another’s songwriting powers and their longing to use those powers for good that drew them to each other.
“In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humour, every faculty available to you,” Baez once said, seeing artists as having a responsibility to use their work for good. For a while, Dylan seemed to agree as he wrote deeply political songs. But then suddenly, he U-turned, stating, “I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.”
‘To Ramona’ deals with that, as Dylan essentially turns around to Baez and pleads with her to leave the politics behind. “Your magnetic movements / Still capture the minutes I’m in / But it grieves my heart, love / To see you tryin’ to be a part of / A world that just don’t exist / It’s all just a dream, babe / A vacuum, a scheme, babe / That sucks you into feelin’ like this,” he sings, in short saying ‘I love you, but this is foolish’, imploring her to give in with her protest songwriting.
Dylan’s ability to simply drop the topic of political or social injustice astounded Baez. As he moved into his electric era, it wasn’t his fading folk sound that bothered her but his loosening desire to stand for something in his music. So, in 1972, she called it out, not affording him a nickname as she released ‘To Bobby’.
It’s a similar set-up to ‘To Ramona’, but instead of imploring her love to give it up, she begs for him to start saying something again. “I’ll put flowers at your feet and I will sing to you so sweet / And hope my words will carry home to your heart,” she begins, willing to use her affection for him and the way her talent and voice have always moved him in order to get him to listen, similar to Dylan’s more loving remarks in his own track. But immediately after, she launches her inquest, singing, “You left us marching on the road and said how heavy was the load / The years were young, the struggle barely had its start,” as she calls him out for dropping politics when the fight was only beginning.
“No one could say it like you said it,” she sings about his earlier protest pieces. It’s something she truly believed as she once picked ‘Blowin’ in The Wind’ as her favourite protest song, stating, “It’s an anthem.” She said, “It works because there’s a universality to it, as she praised Dylan’s ability to get political messages to hit at the heart of mankind. But when he stopped trying to reach people, she genuinely grieved the loss of the impact he could have. “We’re only saying the time is short and there is work to do / And we’re still marching in the streets with little victories and big defeats,” she sings but adds that he still has a role here as she croons, “But there is joy and there is hope and there’s a place for you.”
The question of what made Dylan lose faith in protest writing is one that has never been answered, but Baez ponders it. “Perhaps the pictures in the Times could no longer be put in rhymes,” she sings, wondering even if it all became too hard for him as she wrote, “You cast aside the cursed crown and put your magic into a sound / That made me think your heart was aching or even broken.” However, with the reason never known, not even by Baez, who was Dylan’s close friend at the time, he turned away from the topic. There was nothing left for her to do but plead for him to reconsider.
At a time when countless fights still wore on, from racial injustice to poverty, the Vietnam War to the Cold War, Baez was right that there was still work to do. As she mourned the ways that Dylan could help these causes if only he’d return to singing about them, she called him out by name, singing, “Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby? They’re crying for you”.
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